Chapter 43
Section 85 and 86 of 100% The Story of a Patriot by Upton Sinclair. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Section 85. Peter went out from this conference a sober man, realizing for the first time his responsibilities as a voter, and a shepherd to other voters.
Peter agreed with Gladys that his views had been too narrow. His conception of the duties of a secret agent had been of the pre-war order. Now he must realize that the world was changed. Now in this new world made safe for democracy, the secret agent was the real ruler of society, the real master of affairs, the trustee as it were for civilization.
Peter and his wife must take up this new role and make themselves fit for it. They ought of course not be moved by personal considerations, but at the same time they must recognize the fact that this higher role would be of great advantage to them. It would enable them to move up in the world, to meet the best people. Through five or six years of her young life, Gladys had sat polishing the fingernails and
fondling the soft white hands of the genteel. And always a fire of determination had burnt in her breast, that someday she would belong to this world of gentility. She would meet these people, not as an employee, but as an equal. She would not merely hold their hands, but would have them hold hers.
Now the chance had come. She had a little talk with Guffey, and Guffey said it would be a good idea, and he would speak to Billy Nash, the secretary of the Improve America League, and did so. And next week the American City Times announced that on the following Sunday evening the men's Bible class of the Bethlehem Church would have an interesting meeting.
It would be addressed by an undercover operative of the government, a former red who had been for many years a most dangerous agitator, but had seen the error of his ways, and had made amends by giving his service to the government in the recent IWW trials. The Bethlehem Church didn't amount to very much. It was an obscure sect like the Holy Rollers.
But Gladys had been shrewd, and had insisted that you must try to climb to the top of the mountain in one step. Peter must first try it on the dog, and if he failed there would be no great harm done. But Gladys worked just as hard to make a success of this lecture, as if they had been going into real society.
She spent several days getting her pre-costume and Peter's, and she spent a whole day getting her toilet ready, and before they set out she spent at least an hour putting the finishing touches upon herself in front of a mirror, and seeing that Peter was proper in every detail. When Mr. Nash introduced her personally to the Reverend Zebediah Muggins, and when this
apostle of the Second Advent came out upon the platform and introduced her husband to the crowded working-class audience, Gladys was so aquiver with delight that it was more a pain than a pleasure. Peter did not do perfectly, of course. He lost himself a few times, and stammered and floundered about.
But he remembered Gladys' advice. If he got stuck, to smile and explain that he had never spoken in public before. So everything went along nicely, and everybody in the men's Bible class was aghast at the incredible revelations of this ex-red and secret agent of law and order. So next week Peter was invited again, this time by the Young Saints League, and when
he had made good there he was drafted by the Ad Men's Association, and then by the Crackers and Cheese Club. By this time he had acquired what Gladys called Savoir Faire. His fame spread rapidly, and at last came the Supreme Hour. He was summoned to Park Avenue to address the members of the Friendly Society, a parish
organization of the Church of the Divine Compassion. This was the goal upon which the eyes of Gladys had been fixed. This was the time that really counted, and Peter was groomed and rehearsed all over again. Their home was only a few blocks from the church, but Gladys insisted that they must positively arrive in a taxi cab, and when they entered the parish hall, and the Reverend
de Willeby Stutterbridge, that exquisite almost English gentleman, came up and shook hands with them, Gladys knew that she had at last arrived. The clergyman himself escorted her to the platform, and after he had introduced Peter, he seated himself beside her, thus definitely putting a seal upon her social position. Peter, having learned his lecture by heart, having found out just what brought laughter
and what brought tears and what brought patriotic applause, was now an assured success. After the lecture, he answered questions, and two clerks in the employ of Billy Nash passed around membership cards of the Improve America League. Membership dues $5 a year, sustaining membership $25 a year, life membership $200 cash. Peter was shaken hands with by members of the most exclusive social set in American
City, and told by them all to keep it up, his country needed him. Next morning, there was an account of his lecture in the Times, and the morning after, there was an editorial about his revelations with the moral, Join the Improve America League. Section 86. That second morning, when Peter got to his office, he found a letter waiting for him,
a letter written on very conspicuous and expensive stationery, and addressed in a woman's tall and sharp pointed handwriting. Peter opened it and got a start, for at the top of the letter was some kind of crest, and a Latin inscription, and the words, Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution. The letter informed him by the hand of a secretary that Mrs. Warren Samye requested
that Mr. Peter Gudge would be so good as to call upon her that afternoon at three o'clock. Peter studied the letter and tried to figure out what kind of red this was. He was impressed by the stationery and the regal tone, but that word, Revolution, was one of the forbidden words. Mrs. Warren Samye must be one of the parlor reds, like Mrs. God, so Peter took the letter
to McGivney and said suspiciously, What kind of a red plot is this? McGivney read the letter and said, Red plot? How do you mean? Why, explained Peter, it says Daughters of the American Revolution. And McGivney looked at him.
At first he thought that Peter was joking, but when he saw that the fellow was really in earnest, he guffawed in his face. You boob, he said, didn't you ever hear of the American Revolution? Don't you know anything about the Fourth of July? Just then the telephone rang and interrupted them, and McGivney shoved the letter to him
saying, Ask your wife about it. So when Gladys came in, Peter gave her the letter and she was much excited. It appeared that Mrs. Warren Samye was a very tip-top society lady in American City, and this American Revolution of which she was a daughter was a perfectly respectable revolution that had happened a long time ago.
The very best people belonged to it, and it was legal and proper to write about and even to put on your letterheads. Peter must go home and get himself into the best clothes at once, and telephone to the secretary that he would be pleased to call upon Mrs. Warren Samye at the hour indicated. Incidentally, there were a few more things for Peter to study.
He must get a copy of the social register, Who's Who in American City, and he must get a history of his country and learn about the Declaration of Independence and what was the difference between a revolution that had happened a long time ago and one that was happening now. So Peter went to call on the Great Society Lady in her Greystone Mansion and found her
every bit as opulent as Mrs. God, with the addition that she respected her own social position. She did not make the mistake of treating Peter as an equal, and so it did not occur to Peter that he might settle down permanently in her home. Her purpose was to tell Peter that she had heard of his lecture about the Red Menace
and that she was chairman of the board of directors of the Lady Patronesses of the Home for Disabled War Veterans in American City, and she wanted to arrange to have Peter deliver this lecture to the veterans. And Peter, instructed in advance by Gladys, said that he would be very glad to donate this lecture as a patriotic contribution.
Mrs. Warren Samye thanked him gravely in the name of his country and said she would let him know the date. Peter went home, and Gladys made a wry face, because the lecture was to be delivered before a lot of good-for-nothing soldiers in some hall when it had been her hope that it was to be delivered to the daughters themselves, and in Mrs. Warren Samye's home.
However, to have attracted Mrs. Warren Samye's attention for anything was in itself a triumph. So Gladys was soon cheerful again, and she told Peter about Mrs. Warren Samye's life. One picked up such valuable knowledge in the gossip at the manicure parlours, it appeared. Thus, being in a friendly mood, Gladys talked to Peter about himself. They had mounted to a height from which they could look back upon the past and see it as
a whole, and in the intimacy and confidence of their domestic partnership they could draw lessons from their mistakes and plan their future wisely. Peter had made many blunders. He must surely admit that. Did Peter admit that?
Yes, Peter did. But, continued Gladys, he had struggled bravely, and he had the supreme good fortune to have secured for himself that greatest of life's blessings, the cooperation of a good and capable woman. Gladys was very emphatic about this latter, and Peter agreed with her.
He agreed also when she stated that it is the duty of a good and capable wife to protect her husband for the balance of their life's journey, so that he would be able to avoid the traps which his enemy set for his feet. Peter, having learned by bitter experience, would never again go chasing after a pretty face and wake up next morning to find his pockets empty.
Peter admitted this, too. As this conversation progressed, he realized that the tour of triumph his life had become was a thing entirely of his wife's creation. At least he realized that there would be no use in trying to change his wife's conviction on the subject.
Likewise, he meekly accepted her prophecies as to his future conduct. He would bring home his salary at the end of each week, and his wife would use it, together with her own salary, to improve the appearance and tone of both of them, and to aid them to climb to a higher social position. Peter, following his wife's careful instructions, had already become more dignified in his speech,
more grave in his movements. She tells him that the future of society depends on his knowledge and his skill, and he agrees to this also. He has learned what you can do and what you had better not do. He will never again cross the deadline into crime, or take chances with experiments in
blackmail. He will try no more freelance work under the evil influence of low creatures like Nell Doolan, but will stand in with the machine and bear in mind that honesty is the best policy. So he will steadily progress.
He will meet the big men of the country, and will go to them, not cringing and twisting his hat in his hands, but with quiet self-possession. He will meet the agents of the Attorney General aspiring to become president, and will furnish them with material for their weekly red scares. He will meet legislators who want to unseat elected socialists, and governors who wish
to jail the leaders of outlaw strikes. He will meet magazine writers getting up articles, and popular novelists looking for local red color. But Peter's best bid of all will be as a lecturer. He will be able to travel all over the country, making a sensation.
Did he know why? No, Peter answered. He was not sure he did. Well, Gladys could tell him. It was because he was romantic.
Peter didn't know just what this word meant, but it sounded flattering, so he smiled sheepishly, showing his crooked teeth, and asked how Gladys found out that he was romantic. The reply was a sudden order for him to stand up and turn around slowly. Peter didn't like to get up from his comfortable Morris chair, but he did what his wife asked him.
She inspected him on all sides and exclaimed, Peter, you must go on a diet. You're getting ombung poing. She said this in horrified tones, and Peter was frightened because it sounded like a disease. But Gladys added,
You cannot be a romantic figure on a lecture platform if you've got a bay window. Peter found it interesting to be talked about, so he asked again why Gladys thought he was romantic. There were several reasons, she said, but the main one was that he had been a dangerous criminal and had reformed, which pleased the church people.
He had made a happy ending by marriage, which pleased those who read novels. Is that so? said Peter guilelessly, and she assured him that it was. And what else? he asked. And she explained that he had known intimately and at first hand those dreadful and dangerous people, those ogres of the modern world, the Bolsheviks, about whom the average man and
woman learned only through the newspapers. Not merely did he tell a sensational story, but he ended it with a money-making lesson. The lesson was, contribute to the improve America League. Make out your checks to the Home and Fireside Association. The existence of your country depends upon your sustaining the Patriots Defense Legion.
So the fame of Peter's lecture would spread, and the guffies and Bill Nash's of every city and town in America would clamor for him to come. And when he came, the newspapers would publish his picture, and he and his wife would be welcomed by leaders of the best society. They would become social lions and would see the homes of the rich and gradually become
one of the rich. Gladys looked her spouse over again as they started to their sleeping apartment. Yes, he was undoubtedly putting on ombong poing. He would have to take up golf. He was wearing a little American flag dangling from his watch chain, and she wondered if
that wasn't a trifle crude. Gladys herself now wore a real diamond ring and had learned to say, Vaz and Bath. She yawned prettily, and she took off her lovely brown tailor-maid and reflected that such things come with ease and security. Both she and Peter now had these in full measure.
They had lost all fear of ever finding themselves out of a job. They had come to understand that the Red Menace is not to be so easily exterminated. It is a distemper that lurks in the blood of society and breaks out every now and then in a new rash. Gladys had come to agree with the Reds to this extent that so long as there is a class
of the rich and prosperous, so long will there be social discontent. So long will there be some that make their living by agitating, denouncing, and crying out for change. Society is like a garden. Each year when you plant your vegetables there springs up also a crop of weeds, and you have
to go down the rows and chop off the heads of these weeds. Gladys's husband is an expert gardener. He knows how to chop weeds, and he knows that society will never be able to dispense with his services. So long as gardening continues, Peter will be a head weed-chopper and a teacher of classes
of young weed-choppers. Ah, it was fine to have married such a man. It was the reward a good woman received for helping her husband, making him into a good citizen, a patriot, and an upholder of law and order. For always, of course, those who owned the garden would see that their head weed-chopper
was taken care of, and had his share of the best that the garden produced. Gladys stood before her looking-glass, braiding her hair for the night, and thinking of the things she would ask from this garden. She and Peter had earned, and they would demand, the sweetest flowers, the most luscious fruits. Suddenly, Gladys stretched wide her arms in an ecstasy of realization.
We're a success, Peter. We're a success. We'll have money and all the lovely things it will buy. Do you realize, Peter, what a hit you've made? Peter saw her face of joy.
But he was a tiny bit frightened and uncertain because of this unusual sharing of the honors. So Gladys was impelled to affection, mingled with pity. She held out her arms to him. Oh, dear Peter, he's had such a hard life. It was cruel he didn't have me sooner to help him.
And then Gladys reflected for a moment, and was moved to another outburst. Just think, Peter, how wonderful it is to be an American. In America, you can always rise if you do your duty. America is the land of the free. Your example of a poor boy's success ought to convince even the fool reds that they're
wrong, that any boy can rise if he works hard. Why, I've heard it said that in America, the poorest boy can rise to be president. How would you like to be president, Peter? Peter hesitated. He doubted if he was equal to that big a job.
But he knew that it would not please Gladys for him to say no. He murmured, perhaps someday. Peter, his wife continued, I'm for this country. I'm an American. And this time Peter didn't have to hesitate.
You bet, he said, and added his favorite formula, 100 percent.
